Don't Count Your Chickens

Thursday, September 30, 2010

He will need a place to sit, so you will get him a barstool. Once in a barstool, he will demand some chocolate milk. After he takes a sip he will decide he didn't want it. He will throw it on the ground. Because it had no lid, you will spend the next few minutes mopping up the milk mess on the floor. And counter. And walls. You will leave the ceiling for later. While you're mopping up the milk, he will climb down from the barstool and disappear. So will the cookies. You will go looking for him and find him covered in war paint. You will learn he likes the colors blue and green across his chest and orange on his nose. You will spend the next few minutes scavenging for the marker lids. And probably the rest of the markers too. Better put away the crayons as well just in case. When you place them back in the office desk, you will find his stash of cookies so you will have to wipe out the drawer. Once done you will find the boy playing calmly in his room playing with his cars. Wearing only war paint. He will probably see the diaper in your hand and bolt from the room yelling, "NO! Poopoo Potty!" He will climb on to the closed toilet and sit demanding that you not touch him because he is busy. You will casually walk to toward the sink like you just need to touch up your face. He will call your bluff and bolt from the room. You will have thought ahead and blocked his path. He will have to be wrestled down and have his wrists pinned to the ground with your hands and his feet pinned to the ground with your feet. You will have to put on his diaper with your knees. When he is done getting dressed he will want to watch Mickey Mouse. You will put him in front of the T.V. believing you have 15 seconds to visit the loo. Once you are out of sight, he will decide to take off his shoes. After he has his shoes off, he will need a place to stash them out of sight. He will probably decide to place them up high where Mom can't see them so he will find a barstool. He will push the barstool toward the counter and climb up putting himself directly in front of the microwave. He will think he has struck gold. He will stash his shoes and then realize they need to be warmed up. He will turn it on. You will come in and find him calmly watching cartoons with the microwave on. You will find his shoes and replace the barstool. Now that the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse song is on, he will want you to do the closing dance with him. He will tell you to sit back down because you butchered the goofy dance. He will finish it alone. When Mickey is all done, he will decide he is hungry so he will run to a barstool. You will probably decide on the one with the seatbelt. Once he's in his barstool-seatbelt, it will remind him of his milk.And chances are, if you give a toddler some milk--

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Yes, thank you for asking. I don't think I'm alone in this, but I may have just ruined our dinner. However, I may be alone in the fact that I ruined 2 dinners at once. That sounds bad. Letme rephrase: I killed two pre-dead animals with one stone. That's a little more cheerful, yes?

I've been doing this program called e-mealz. I signed up for it a few months ago because it took all the meal planning out of my day (or just gave me a meal plan since I can't remember the last time I scratched out a map for my weekly meals). I sign up for the service, they send me a weeks worth of meals, slap it onto a shopping list for me and "Viola!" done. In my case over-done. Hold that thought.

Today I felt like trying my domestic hat on. I do this every once in a while before remembering , "oh yeah. . . nope." I thought before cooking dinner I would quickly cook up some calzones for a weeks worth of lunches. I've made them for dinner several times. Easy shmeasy.

I heated up the oven, which already smelled of smoke since I guess there was some spilled food burning on the bottom of the oven. It was already heated, nothing I can do about it now, so I popped the calzones in, then started dinner. Because I was already smelling smoke, I didn't notice when my calzones switched from golden-delicious to coal-foot until the beeper went off.

Frustrated, I'm opening windows to let all the new smoke out.I come back to making my meatloaf. I have never in my life made meatloaf because, generally, I'm of the opinion that meat should never be formed into a loaf, but I had my domestic hat on, it was on the list, and was feeling rebellious. It's "Mexican Meatloaf" so I added the salsa. All the salsa. One half too much salsa. The last half was supposed to be added at the end. My meat is not in a loaf. It's in a swamp.

Pete told me before we got married that he was an awesome cook. I thought we were set. Turns out he thought he was a chef because he could make a mean omelet. I don't like omelets.

I'm pretty sure my childrens dinner woes are his fault. Because, clearly, that's false advertising. At least when he married me he knew my main course was toasted o's with a serving of milk, spoon on the side.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

It's a good thing we've been married for eight years. On your first few anniversaries there is an expectation to do something extravagant like expensive dinners, carriage rides, or big concerts. When you've been married for eight years, stretching out on separate couches while spending the evening comparing sickisms because one of you has the flu and the other has an ear/sinus infection is perfectly acceptable.Yep that's right eight years. And such a bummer that we were sick so I didn't even notice that our anniversary was extra special this year because it was 8-9-10 so I didn't have time to convince Pete that he should get me an extra present. I know. He'll just have to make it up to me.I feel like now that we've made it to 8 we are a "seasoned" couple. Not like those newlyweds. Although the butterflies are still there, after 8 years, you have passed the 7-year-itch and now it's just smooth sailing from here on out. (Right?)I think it's fun to watch newlyweds though. They are still not quite sure how this marriage thing works, and the giddyness is tangible when you're in the same room. A few days ago my newly-married Bro-in-law was saying how he is such a sucker for his cute wife's puppy dog eyes and is willing to get up to get her a bowl of cereal even if she is the one standing in the kitchen and he is stretched out on the couch. He thought it was a little unfair that he didn't always have that same power over her. Me and Pete just looked at each other and laughed our seasoned marriage smile.Ah, But they are young yet. Pretty soon, Jared will realize that it's a privilege to be able to wait on your wife hand and foot. Just give him time.

Monday, August 9, 2010

We spent Monday and Tuesday "camping" at Cherry Hill. It's probably the tamest variation on the word "camping" but the kids are in love and there are clean showers and bathrooms, so who's complaining here?We were completely and thoroughly worn out by the end of day 1 since my kids have absolutely zero need to lay down and recharge their batteries, although we tried to trick them into it several times. After a full day of swimming they finally passed out at 10 p.m. and were little angelic creatures in happy camping heaven. But they are young. They will learn that there isn't really such thing.

Andrew and I climbed in the tent and lay down for a long summers slumber on our comfy cushy air mattress. We knew it was perfectly proportioned with air since the air cradled our limbs up high, but the trunk of our bodies sunk cozily into the rock earth. Perfect. We had only gone through two inconsolable toddler night terrors when the rain started.That could have been soothing if we didn't feel it inside our tent just as if we were outside. Now we have all three kids awake and crying. Andrew jumps up off the air mattress which of course flops me flat on the ground and he flies out of the tent. In just his underwear of course. I'm whisper-shouting at the kids to take cover under their sleeping bags while their Dad is pantless outside yelling to his brother to help get the tarp on the tent.His helpful older brother walks by and just pulls down Pete's drawers then continues walking. Let's hope there were no witnesses to that. So then I hear Andrew (re-drawered) flailing outside with the tarp shouting a few random "help!'s" out there for anyone else in the family. You might be wondering why I wasn't outside helping. Clearly I would have been, but the baby needed to be covered with a blanket so as not to get wet.His bro Adam comes to the rescue and they get it secured within a few minutes. Andrew makes it back inside and falls back on the mattress teeter-tottering me slightly airborne. I laugh at my knight-in-shining-underarmor and tell him thanks. As we settle back into our sleeping bags we look up and notice the tarp is covering everything except for directly over our foreheads.We spent the next few minutes silently enduring the slow drips above our eyebrows. Then we had a breakthrough:"Andrew""Yep""I think I hate camping""You know what?""what?""I think I've always hated camping"

Then the mattress squeaked loudly while he tried to adjust to rolling over, sending me to a rock hard landing.

The relief is tangible. The thought of no more air mattresses and even less tents makes my heart happy. Just glad we found this out about ourselves now. Although there is a big stigma about non-campers. That they're wimpy. This is why it's been so hard for me to come to this conclusion for so long.

It's time to embrace my inner wimp. My name is Jodi, and I hate camping!

Friday, July 16, 2010

I was thinking about getting up this morning, but not really ready to face the already arguing kids in the kitchen when The Boy brought me the phone with dial tone blaring. I turned it off and went back to contemplating the ceiling.A few minutes later the doorbell rings. I sent the girls to look out the window. Every couple of days my girls have one or another of their friends show up early to play. I assumed this was one of those times. Shea comes back to tell me that it looks like a police man at my door.

I am a little freaked out. Not because I thought it was a cop, but because I assumed she had been mistaken and it was just a man she didn't know. I answered the door and the nice cop asked if everything was okay at our house. ???? They had just received a 911 hang up and wanted to make sure everything was okay.

Ah, the wonderful twos. My happy Boy ran up to the door in just his diaper smiling and jumping. I assured the police man everything was fine and explained the dial tone/toddler incident.

The Boy seemed awfully proud of himself this morning. Lots of laughing and running around after that. There is only two explanations to his behavior. Either he grabbed the phone and completely randomly dialed the three worst numbers to crank call OR the insistence that he have his morning waffles NOW has just become more than an entire family emergency.

I want to believe it's the first, but having seen how crazy/happy he gets about his Eggo's I may be more inclined to think the second.

Either way, I've decided the best course of action is to send him to Grandma's house for a couple of weeks.

Monday, July 12, 2010

When my sweet little electric muffin said he was heading out to spruce up the garage, I was under the impression he meant tidy up and sweep.

It's great because ever since we moved in I've just been so bugged that we had absolutely no trace of ambiance in our garage. He sure took care of that. Hot spark is always looking out for my needs! : ) Now, whenever I pull in, my garage chandelier reminds me of black ties, sparkling apple cider, and garden toilets full of potted flowers. No better way to come home if you ask me.

Now I'm on the hunt for a matching porch couch, so if you get a whiff of any great deals, give me a call!

Friday, July 2, 2010

Truly, if I were a smart woman, I would never take a shower. I will explain.

Picture this:

A two year old, running rampant while Mom takes a quick 5 minute shower. (okay it's 10 minutes, but seriously, a 5 minute shower? who really does that?).He seems so innocent and so quiet while me or any other adult is within sight; however, Mom steps out of the relaxing shower then into the kitchen where she finds a brand new roll of paper towels. They are still stuck together, but unraveled across the floor. Mom's a little peeved. Mom follows the trail around the kitchen island and over to the end which is a large wad of about 15 still attached towels. It's sort of different than what you find at the end of a rainbow. The trail end/wad is damp and soaking up a pool of abandoned clear liquid. A quick sniff test confirms it's just water (thank goodness), but this is more of a large towel (or possibly one small shammy) type of clean up. Mom see's a little brown eyed, possibly pantless, but diapered toddler walking up and smiling. He gives mom a big hug. Mom is about to really put her foot down to let this toddler know she won't put up with this type of behavior and dang it if he doesn't almost qualify for a time out. (almost because he is awfully cute).Before Mom can get a word out, little toddler get's a big smile as he looks at his artistic towel expression and exclaims,

"Ta-Da!!!!"

Cute, right? I know. The problem is he knows. He knows that I can't do anything at that point. What do I say to that? And where does this end? I am afraid he is going to have plenty of more magical "tada" moments in the future. He can't just claim "tada" and make everything okay can he? Of course not. And that's what I told him.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

I was getting ready for a friends birthday dinner yesterday. I decided to try something new with my hair. I've seen lots of women do really cute curls in their hair with a flat iron--I've even done it on my kids so I thought it would be easy enough to do myself. Things were going well too until I saw the back and decided I did NOT want to be Shirley Temple today. I'm a little old for that.No worries. I will just fluff them a bit to loosen them up.

I guess Shirley Temple Curls don't fluff. They frizz. Time was getting away. I was getting dangerously closer to the running late mark. I hate that.

No worries. I will just flat iron the frizz so it's flat.

I guess frizzies don't flat iron so they're flat. They just frizz flatter. I had two options. Hope nobody notices my frizz hair or call in some reinforcements.

I called my neighbor Teah. Her hair is always cute so I knew she could help. I hung up twice before getting up the courage to call her for real. Doing your own hair is just something women are supposed to know on their own, so admitting that the only reason your hair looks the same every single day is not because you love it that way, but instead because you don't have a clue what else to do with it takes you one notch down on the "Real Woman" ladder.

Ugh. I hate being one notch down on the real woman ladder. She came over though and fixed it much cuter than I have ever done myself. I was now past the I'm running late mark and I still needed to finish getting dressed. I headed my kids out to the car 20 minutes before I was supposed to suprise someone who was 40 minutes away.

I wasn't a very good suprise. Once in the car I told everyone to stay buckled while I unbuckled again to run inside to find my blasted keys. After 5 minutes of stomping around fruitlessly Madisen stopped listening and unbuckled because she said she could find them. I scolded her for taking up more time than was needed and she didn't listen. She just walked in looked around for about 30 seconds then found them in my closet.

I love when the kids don't listen.

I was late. Big suprise. I had to meet Hot Spark at the restaurant, who by the way, was there on time for the big suprise. I told him I thought it would be a good idea to try something new with my hair. He told me he thinks whenever I get a new idea I need to call him first and ask his opinion. I told him "but you never like my ideas." He just nodded and said "uh-huh" like I was missing something big. I sort of think that if a Man expects his woman to be on time that somehow he is violating the woman code.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Our ol' trusty van has apparently seen better days. We didn't pass safety inspections yesterday because our sway bar on the passenger side isn't working. Raise of hands of who even knows what a sway bar is?

I hope I'm not the only one. Pete says I violated the guy code. When Jiffy Lube man was listing the repairs we needed to bring our car up to par Pete was nodding his head like he understood everything, and probably even saw this news coming. So I turned to him and asked what the heck a sway bar is.

That's where I violated the code.

He didn't know what the heck a sway bar is either. He looked at me for a few minutes, then back at JiffyLube man before admitting he didn't know. So I asked JiffyLube man what it is. FYI it helps stabilize your car during strong winds. Hmm. Has that ever gone out on anyone elses car? I'm thinking they made that up. Anyway. Turns out you're not supposed to ask a question like that in front of another male. Pete claims I'm supposed to assume my "man" knows what that something is and that ""my Man" can take care of it.I asked if it would have helped if I would have directed the question to JiffyLube man first so he could have answered it and Pete still could have looked cool (on top of being hot-handsome).I guess that wouldn't have worked either. The guy code is strict. It was my job to look innocently at "My Man" maybe even with worshipping eyes while he nodded confidently at lowly JiffyLube man so that all the males in the waiting room could see that "My Man" was a M-A-N. (Puff up chest here).

Seems a little tarzan-ish to me. Also, seems a little harsh for the M-A-N who cried with me during "A Walk to Remember". But maybe this guy-code stuff is just way over my head?

t all started about 3 weeks ago. Well really if you want to start at the beginning you could call it the day they put out the "boil order". Or maybe even farther back into my childhood. But for this story we will call it 3 weeks.

I got a craving for some ice. Seems semi normal right? It's been hot and when it's hot, ice is nice, right? I had Lovetricity stop at the gas station to get me a cuppa'. A cuppa' the little crunchy ice. You know the kind. Like sonic has. The tiny little pellets. Mmm it was good too.

Then I had him do it the next day.And the next.

Pretty soon, I was leaving the house with all 3 kids to stop at the "Top Stop" for the dang ice. I was even making others stop there with me. Because I felt silly to stop regularly for just ice, I started buying the 44oz size cups filling it full of ice, then pouring in about a quarter full of Diet Coke. That way I could pay for a drink, but really, who needs Diet Coke when you have the cold crunch of frozen water pellets?

?????

I know. It had surpassed my addiction for diet coke. That was my first clue there was a problem. The final straw happened soon after. I stopped after my girls swimming lesson to pick up my usual. I filled my first 44oz with ice then a touch of DC. It wasn't enough for me. I thought about the long night ahead, and how many hours I would be without my precious ice, and I did it.

I double iced it.

A SECOND CUP!! OF ICE!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?????

I've always loved crunching ice, but never needed it. At least not like this. I've been trying to figure out my problem. Maybe I am a little dehydrated? Since the stupid water boil order happened down here I have seriously cut down on my water drinking. Not because it isn't safe to drink still (because it was lifted several weeks ago) but just because I'm afraid it has permanently grossed me out. So maybe that is all it is? I need to come up with a solid reason for this because Andrew doesn't think I'm dehydrated-- just crazy.

A day in the life! Whoa, and it's been a doozy! You know those dreams where you're in a big fat hurry to get somewhere important, (in my dreams usually to do something fantastically noble like save 100 children from enormous crocodiles, of course) but your feet move slowly and every time you think you can get out the door some new obstacle comes your way and you have to take care of that before leaving?

That was today. Only not in dream life. For reals.

I would never dream of blabbering on for an hour about something (maybe) so I won't bore you with everything, but of all the obstacles to face on your way out the door gum in your daughters long hair has to be one of the worst. I know. But thank you miracle Goo Gone for being you and transforming a sticky scissory situation into a mere gooey hurdle. And thank you Misty for blogging about it a year ago or I never would have known it existed.

So I'm on my way to my destination approx 2hrs after when I should be there. I was just cresting the home stretch when I get pulled over by a dang cop.

Dang Cop: Did you know your reg. is overdue?Me: ah. Yep.Dang Cop: Also, you were probably going a little to fast.Me. sigh* Yes.Dang Cop: Were you in a hurry?Me: Nope. I just came from further south where the speed limit was higher, and I was in a rhythm.Dang Cop: Okay, just give me a sec

He walks back to the car to do cop like things. When he comes back:

Dang Cop: Do you know how to get out of a ticket?Me: *eyes bright* uh. . . no?Suddenly Dashing with Mysterious Handsome Eyes Cop: Don't lie--At least with me that always works. Most people try to tell me they didn't know their car wasn't registered, or they were speeding. I'm going to let you off with a warning this time. .Me: Oh, thank you!!!

I Heart Cops : )

Boy was I happy the wardrobe gods planned for me to wear my cute pink shirt today!! I am too old to believe my looks in any way swayed his decision, but seriously the cute shirt coincidence is there, so think what you will. Everything was looking up Jodi!

I made it to said destination just 2 hrs and 15 minutes after appointed time! At least I made it. In superhero crocodile dreams I never end up making it. I just flop over and I end up awake on my lumpy bed sans hero medal. Nothing's more disappointing than swapping a medal for a drooly pillow.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

So we've started a budget. Dave Ramsey says it will make us rich. I now understand why so many people say budget is a four letter word.

1. F2. U3. N4. !

Budgeting is super cool really rad stuff. Mostly I love seeing where all of my money goes. And goes. And goes. It's a slippery little paper. It's hard to hang on to when I see really cool stuff that I need. It's kinda like I'm rubber and cool stuff is glue, and the money bounces right off of me and sticks to the cool stuff. I can't help it. I like things. Being on a budget is kinda like when you go to the dentist and your mouth is numb, so you have to suck your dinner up through a straw. Nothin' get's through.Not even the cute panels I need for my window. Not even my new couch. Not even Hawaii. Hawaii doesn't fit through a straw.You know what Hot Spark thinks we should do with our money?

BANK IT!!

I know!! Ludicrous!!

But I didn't marry him for his brains people, just his cute butt. We've been on a "fun!" now for like 5 weeks. I figure we should be at our half-way point for richness. If I'm not rich in the next 5 weeks it may get crazy over here.

To speed up the process I'm starting a Get Me Rich Quick Fund. If you would like to donate just contact me and I will come by to pick up my check. If you donate, you get to be in a raffle for who gets to choose the location of my first of many vacation homes. I will even autograph a post card from said location once we're there.

About Me

I'm Jodi, wife to Pete and we have 3 goober kids we think we will probably keep. I like expensive things, eating, and receiving comments on my blog. I think Pete is smart, funny, and the best husband ever. And Valentine's day is coming up. Just a side note.